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I’m locked. Trapped in my own fucking home—my own nightmare—while outside, Ava and Dad speak to the police as if I don’t have a voice of my own. An hour passes, and Dad still hasn’t returned, and I’m losing my damn mind. I pace. Three steps one way, then three steps the other because it’s all the room this shitty house has to offer.
I’m pissed.
Beyond it.
Because she didn’t ask him to leave. She asked me.
Finally, Dad enters, and I stop pacing. Arms down, chest out, I’m ready for it. “I convinced them not to press any charges against you,” he says.
“Me?” I shout. “What about that fucker?!”
“Watch your goddamn mouth, Connor!”
I draw back. “You’re kidding, right? He’s the one hurting her, and you’re in here blasting me?”
“He didn’t touch her!”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was there, okay! I’m the one who treated her!” he yells. My stomach drops, and everything inside me stills. I take a breath. And then another. I start to speak, but he beats me to it. “Whatever it is that’s going on with you and that girl, it ends now.”
I shake my head, defiant. “No.”
“You think this is up for discussion?”
I start to walk away.
“I’m serious, Connor. I forbid you from spending time with her.”
I turn on my heels, an incredulous laugh bubbling out of me. “You forbid me?”
“Yes.” He stands in front of me, arms crossed, standing his ground.
I try to calm my thoughts, try to settle my breathing. “You forbid me?” I repeat, then take a step forward, tower over him. “For seventeen years I’ve done nothing, not one damn thing, to ever disobey you. You’ve never had to punish me or set rules for me. I’ve always tried so fucking hard to be the perfect kid because I was so afraid you’d abandon me, too—”
“Connor—”
“No!” I scream. “This is the first time in my entire life that I’ve ever needed your help, and this is what you do? You take away the one good thing I have in my life and—”
His sneer cuts me off. “You’re acting like an ungrateful brat. You have plenty of good things in your life!”
“Like what?” I shout. “Basketball?”
“Yes!”
“It’s just a game! It’s not—”
“It’s more than a game! It’s a ticket out!”
“For you, Dad! It’s a ticket out for you!”
His arms unfold, anger pulling at his brow. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I open my mouth but stop myself from saying something I’ll regret, something I’ve held on to for years. It means that he wants me gone, to a college far, far away, so he doesn’t have to deal with me anymore. So he can get rid of the unwanted burden that was left to him. “Nothing.”
“If you have something to say, say it!”
“I don’t,” I mumble, looking down at the floor. “But you can’t stop me from seeing her.”
